By
Andrew Novo
Maybe it’s something in the wine from Bordeaux. Maybe it’s
something in the Roquefort cheese. Maybe it’s a desire to
imitate the Scottish salmon that generations of French rulers
after William the Conqueror were unable to acquire. Whatever it
is, historically, France seems committed to swimming against the
current of foreign policy, opposing the world’s most powerful
state, and pushing itself forward as the champion of unlikely
causes. At face value, it might be expected that France, one of
the most respected and long-lived democracies in the world, would
support the American led campaign to disarm Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction, and to prevent him
from supporting terrorists, and remove him from power. After all,
France is, and has been for two-hundred years, an important American
ally. In this case, however, France and the United States do not
see eye to eye. In fact, France has aligned itself squarely against
the United States, Britain, Spain, Italy, and almost all of Eastern
Europe, and shoulder to shoulder with Germany and Russia. Now,
it is no surprise that Germany and Russia should oppose American
policy, but France’s opposition is troubling and bears some
explanation.
There’s no doubt that every nation acts almost exclusively
out of self-interest in international affairs. France, however,
has taken this principle to new levels of contrarian action that
betray her position in the world. Yet, the stalwart opposition
-- so much more resolute than that against Germany during twenty-seven
days in 1940 -- to the attempts of the United States to enforce
the mandate of the United Nations Security Council in disarming
Iraq, is only the most recent example of how France has stymied
other nations with its actions.
The root cause of France’s actions can possibly be found
in its egotistical pretensions. Pushed from the limelight of the
international stage, France has made it its duty to reign in the
burgeoning power of the world’s only remaining superpower
– the United States. France aspires to be the watchdog of
the world, a nation that can hold back the tide of American hegemony
and keep the world a healthy and balanced conglomeration of more
or less equal nations. France is no longer an imposing world power
and perhaps thinks that no one else should be either. The mirage
of French greatness was shattered on the battlefields of WWI and
finally put to sleep during the above mentioned seventy-seven
days in 1940. The French star is likely to remain in the eclipse
for the present and the foreseeable future. Interestingly enough,
this is not the first time that France has pursued an unorthodox
course following a fall from conspicuous power. Three significant
examples stand out from history to demonstrate how France, deprived
of open dominance, has attempted to alter the world’s balance
of power through its diplomatic positioning.
During the first half of the sixteenth century, after her imperial
ambitions were foiled in Northern Italy, France found herself
in a difficult strategic situation. The possessions of Holy Roman
Emperor Charles V in Spain, Burgundy, the Netherlands, and Germany,
effectively surrounded the country. To counter the Hapsburg threat,
France found a shocking ally. In 1536, King Francis I became the
first Christian ruler to sign an alliance with the Ottoman Turks.
This was a momentous occasion, while many powers had previously
signed treaties of peace with the Sultan no one had become an
ally. The Turks, hitherto regarded as the greatest threat to European
liberty since the Mongol hordes of the thirteenth century, now
became the partners of one Christendom’s most powerful rulers.
Nevertheless, Francis was intent on the move in order to contain
the ambitions of Charles V, the most powerful ruler in Europe.
Granted, the French have not become an ally of Saddam Hussein,
but they have become his advocate, insisting he is cooperating
with UN weapons inspectors and poses less of a threat to peace
than the loose cannons directing American foreign policy.
Less than a hundred years after the Franco-Turkish alliance, with
Europe shuddering under the strain of the Thirty Years War, France
once again chose an unexpected but politically expedient side.
The country itself was recently emerging from decades of civil
and religious strife. Instead of allying itself, as a Catholic
country, with the Catholic Emperor Ferdinand II, France decided
to fight on the side of the Protestant German, Swedish, and Dutch
forces. This course was pursued not out of devout belief in the
Protestant cause, but mainly to counter the resurgent power of
the empire, and the dominant power of Spain. France had no real
affinity for the Protestant cause, but the desire to maintain
the balance of power in Europe drove the fleur-de-lis onto the
side of the “heretics.”
Finally, we must not forget that France supported the revolution
of thirteen British colonies in North America. Bourbon France
was one of the bastions of Europe’s “Old Order”
of empires. Despite this position, the bait of revenge against
a British Empire that had so recently taken over France’s
large holdings in North America and pushed it out of the Indian
sub-continent proved too strong. Holding its aristocratic nose
against the progressive doctrines of liberty, equality, and justice,
France allied itself against Britain, the most powerful state
in the world. Men, arms, and ships were sent across the Atlantic
to help America win its freedom. This, in the end, of course had
the odd result of pushing an already shaky French economy into
dire straits and sparking a new, exclusively French Revolution
with “liberty, equality, and fraternity” as its (borrowed)
by-words.
Now in the present, France has once more aligned herself against
the greatest power in the world in an effort to stem that nation’s
attempts to deal with international problems as it sees fit. It
is important for America to recognize the lessons of history and
to realize how far France may go to deny the United States what
she denied Charles V in the sixteenth century, Ferdinand II in
the seventeenth, and (soon to be mad) George III in the eighteenth.
France, whether rich or poor, powerful or weak, cannot accept
a secondary role in world affairs and will use every means at
its disposal to push forward into the limelight. In light of the
track record, “the actions of our so-called ally, France”*
are not as surprising as they seem on the surface.
Andrew Novo is an independent foreign policy analyst based in
New York. His opinions may not necessarily reflect those of KWR
International.
